The Charter of the United Nations empowers the General Assembly (GA) to play a key role in maintaining international peace and security, complementing the Security Council which bears “primary responsibility” (Article 24). Over the past eight decades, the GA has responded to a wide range of conflict and crisis situations, calling out international rights violations and acts of aggression, while also creating mechanisms to enable conflict resolution, de-escalation, and humanitarian response.
This report builds on the 2024 Assembly for Peace, a General Assembly-requested Digital Handbook on its past peace and security practice, and responds to the 79th session’s call (A/RES/79/327) for it to be further disseminated and updated. It offers a systematic analysis of how the General Assembly has responded in 46 conflict and use-of-force situations, including:
- A breakdown of the timing and nature of General Assembly responses following Security Council vetoes and deadlock;
- Identifying the most common patterns of General Assembly response and types of action to common conflict triggers; and
- Five detailed case studies illustrating General Assembly action in response to conflict outbreak and rights violations in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Syria, humanitarian crises and conflict in Sudan and Kampuchea (now Cambodia), and regulating conflict minerals via the Kimberley Process.
The study offers a user-friendly resource for Member States, researchers, and other stakeholders interested in understanding the GA’s historical practice and tools for responding to crises and advancing international peace and security.
Read the full brief here.
